Introduction to Globalization PDF

**THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD** **Introduction to globalization** Globalization is the process in which people, ideas and goods spread throughout the world, spurring more interaction and integration between the world\'s cultures, governments and economies. Globalization is a process of interaction and...

**THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD** **Introduction to globalization** Globalization is the process in which people, ideas and goods spread throughout the world, spurring more interaction and integration between the world\'s cultures, governments and economies. Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world. Globalization is about growing worldwide connectivity. *Example*: People are engaged in buying and selling from other places in far-away lands like the famed Silk Road across Central Asia that connected China and Europe during the Middle Age for thousands of years and they also invested in enterprises in other countries for centuries. There were similarities in features of those prevailing wave of globalization before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 to the current wave. There is an increase cross border- trade, investment, and migration due to policy and technical developments in the past few decades. It is in the area of economic development that observers faster, cheaper, and deeper in compared to earlier wave of globalization. *Example*: Since 1950, the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times and from 1997 to 1999, flows of foreign investment nearly doubled from \$468 billion to \$827 domestically. In the years since the Second World War, and especially during the past two decades, many governments have adopted free-market economic systems, vastly increasing their own productive potential and creating myriad new opportunities for international trade and investment. Governments also have negotiated dramatic reductions in barriers to commerce and have established international agreements to promote trade in goods, services, and investment. Taking advantage of new opportunities in foreign markets, corporations have built foreign factories and established production and marketing arrangements with foreign partners. A defining feature of globalization, therefore, is an international industrial and financial business structure. One principal driver of globalization is technology. Economic life is dramatically transformed by advancement in information technology. All sorts of individual economic actors like consumers, investors, and businesses which are valuable new tools for identifying and pursuing economic opportunities, including faster and more informed analyses of economic trends around the world, easy transfers of assets, and collaboration with far-flung partners are provided by information technologies. Globalization is the process of integration of economies across the world through cross-border flow of factors product and information. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), globalization is the growing economic interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and variety of cross border transactions in goods and services and of international capital flows and also through the more rapid and wide diffusion of technology. Globalization is an expansion, and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world time and world space. It is about growing worldwide connectivity according to Steger. Further, globalization is considered a multi-dimensional process involving economic, political, technological, cultural, religious and ecological dimensions. It suggests a dynamic process of change that results in either positive or negative development. It leads to the creation of something new; it involves the multiplication of social connections and various activities that transgress traditional and political, economic, cultural and geographical lines. **Attributes, Qualities or Characteristics of Globalization** Globalization has four characteristics or qualities. These are: 1\. It involves both the creation of new social networks and the multiplication of existing connections that cut across traditional, political, economic, cultural, and geographical boundaries. *Example*: Brazilian World Cup: Today\'s media combine conventional TV coverage with multiple streaming feeds into digital devices and networking sites that transcend nationally based services. 2\. Globalization is reflected in the expansion and the stretching of social relations, activities, and connections. *Examples*: Reaching of financial markets around the globe Occurrence of electronic around the clock Emergence of gigantic and virtually identical shopping malls in all continents to cater to consumers who can afford commodities all over the world-including products whose various components were manufactured in different countries. This process is called social stretching. Covered in the process of social stretching are: 1) non-governmental organization; 2) commercial enterprises; 3) social clubs, and 4) regional and global institutions and associations (UN, EU, ASEAN, Google and others) 3\. Globalization involves the intensification and acceleration of social exchanges and activities. *Examples*: The worldwide web relays distant information in real time Satellites provide consumers with instant pictures of remote events Sophisticated social networking by means of Facebook or Twitter has become routine activity for more than a billion people around the globe. The intensification of worldwide social relations means that local happenings are shaped by events occurring far away, and vice versa. This means that there is intermingling of local and global, with the national and regional in overlapping horizontal scale. 4\. Globalization processes do not occur merely or an objective, material level, but they also involve the subjective plane of human consciousness. Without erasing local and national attachments, the compression of the world into a single place has increasingly made global the frame of reference for human thought and action. Globalization involves both the macro-structures of a global community and the micro-structures of global personhood. It extends deep into the core of the self and its dispositions, facilitating the creation of multiple individual and collective identities nurtured by the intensifying relations between the personal and the global. They differ from each other by acceleration in the speed of social exchanges and widening of geographical scopes. **Historical Periods of Globalization** 1\. The Prehistoric Period (10000 BCE-3500 BCE) In this earliest phase of globalization, contacts among hunters and gatherers - who were spread around the world - were geographically limited. In this period due to absence of advanced forms of technology, globalization was severely limited. 2\. The Pre-modern Period (3500 BCE-1500 CE) In this period the invention of writing and the wheel were great social and technological boosts that moved globalization to a new level. The invention of wheel in addition to roads made the transportation of people and goods more efficient. On the other hand, writing facilitated the spread of ideas and inventions. 3\. The Early Modern Period (1500-1750) It is the period between the Enlightenment and the Renaissance. In this period, European Enlightenment project tried to achieve a universal form of morality and law. This with the emergence of European metropolitan centers and unlimited material accumulation which led to the capitalist world system helped to strengthen globalization. 4\. The Modern Period (1750-1970) Innovations in transportation and communication technology, population explosion, and increase in migration led to more cultural exchanges and transformation in traditional social patterns. Process of industrialization also accelerated. 5\. The Contemporary Period (from 1970 to present) The creation, expansion, and acceleration of worldwide interdependencies occurred in a dramatic way and it was a kind of leap in the history of globalization.